Abstract
Abstract Lake Ohrid (Macedonia/Albania) is the oldest extant lake in Europe and exhibits an outstanding degree of endemic biodiversity. Here, we provide new high-resolution stable isotope and geochemical data from a 10 m core (Co1262) through the Late Glacial to Holocene and discuss past climate and lake hydrology (TIC, δ13Ccalcite, δ18Ocalcite) as well as the terrestrial and aquatic vegetation response to climate (TOC, TOC/N, δ13Corganic, Rock Eval pyrolysis). The data identifies 3 main zones: (1) the Late Glacial–Holocene transition represented by low TIC and TOC contents, (2) the early to mid-Holocene characterised by high TOC and increasing TOC/N and (3) the Late Holocene–Present which shows a marked decrease in TIC and TOC. In general, an overall trend of increasing δ18Ocalcite from 9 ka to present suggests progressive aridification through the Holocene, consistent with previous records from Lake Ohrid and the wider Mediterranean region. Several proxies show commensurate excursions that imply the impact of short-term climate oscillations, such as the 8.2 ka event and the Little Ice Age. This is the best-dated and highest resolution archive of past Late Glacial and Holocene climate from Lake Ohrid and confirms the overriding influence of the North Atlantic in the north-eastern Mediterranean. The data presented set the context for the International Continental scientific Drilling Program Scientific Collaboration On Past Speciation Conditions in Lake Ohrid project cores recovered in spring–summer 2013, potentially dating back into the Lower Pleistocene, and will act as a recent calibration to reconstruct climate and hydrology over the entire lake history.
Highlights
Understanding past variation in climate and hydrology in the Mediterranean is vital for establishing future climate scenarios and assessing the potential impact on human populations, as changes in water resources and rainfall are predicted to have important social, economic and political impacts across the region (Giannakopoulos et al 2009; García-Ruiz et al 2011)
It has been shown that local climate and hydrological change can be defined by stable isotope data from lacustrine carbonates and organic matter (OM) through time (i.e. Leng and Marshall 2004; Leng et al 2013) and that a regional combination of lake isotope records can be used to assess the spatial coherency of climate change (Roberts et al 2008)
A reservoir effect of >1,500 years has been documented in previous Lake Ohrid cores (Wagner et al 2008a; Vogel et al 2010a), a discrepancy of 3,000 years is most likely explained by a combined scenario of reservoir effect and re-deposition
Summary
Understanding past variation in climate and hydrology in the Mediterranean is vital for establishing future climate scenarios and assessing the potential impact on human populations, as changes in water resources and rainfall are predicted to have important social, economic and political impacts across the region (Giannakopoulos et al 2009; García-Ruiz et al 2011). There are numerous stable isotope records from lakes in the Mediterranean (e.g. Zanchetta et al 2012; Dean et al 2013; Leng et al 2013), and several sediment cores have been recovered and analysed from multiple locations within Lake Ohrid (Fig. 1; Roelofs and Kilham 1983; Belmecheri et al 2009; Wagner et al 2009, 2012; Vogel et al 2010a). The data presented here is the bestdated and highest resolution record from Lake Ohrid for the Late Glacial and Holocene period and sets the context for the future work on the new International Continental scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) cores that potentially go back at least 1.2 million years (Wagner et al 2014)
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